


One Day Robots Will...

by gala_apples



Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Activism, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Derogatory Words, M/M, Robot Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:09:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten revelations Pete Wentz has about robots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Day Robots Will...

1) Robots are terrifying.  
The first time Pete ever sees a robot he’s five years old. Pete doesn’t sleep very well at night, he gets put to bed at eight and even after his dad reads him a story he can’t fall asleep. He usually pretends so his dad will go away, and then he’ll tell Wiggles the story as best as he can remember. The worm doesn’t ever seem to mind that he’s just heard it from Dad, and Dad told it better.

Sometimes, if he’s really quiet he can tiptoe into the bathroom and get a glass of water. If he’s really really quiet he can sneak into the kitchen and get a cookie. And if he’s really super extra super quiet he can to the edge of the stairs and watch what his parents are watching on tv. As long as he’s down the hall before they go to bed they don’t notice.

Mom likes watching animal shows. Dad likes watching shows where people do silly things and send them to the tv so everyone can see. But this time they’re not watching either. Instead It’s a woman, talking to a man. She puts her hands on his neck and they start to kiss. And then his head comes off and there’s blood everywhere, and her hand is a giant knife. Pete screams and they tuck him back into bed, explaining that only the government has robots like that, that most robots are nice. Pete has nightmares every night for three weeks.

2) Robots are out to ruin others.  
Pete’s been taking soccer since second grade. He’s played hundreds of games, and in grade eight his goal was the reason they made it into finals.

So going into ninth grade, he’s confident he’ll make it on the team. Try outs are a breeze, he can run with the best of them, score better than most of them. While he’s not big enough to be a great defender, not quite impervious enough to pain yet, he’s a striker of the top degree.

The confidence is what kills him. It cuts like a knife when he sees the list and he’s not one of the eleven. He’s a fucking substitute. It’s worse than not getting in at all, because now he’s got to waste his time going to every game without ever getting the satisfaction of playing.

Pete thinks he can’t be blamed when he goes up to Joey Guetta and punches him in the face. They shouldn’t let fucking metal cunts onto sports teams, he doesn’t care about any fucking discrimination rules the principal has to follow. And it probably doesn’t hurt him anyway.

3) Robots are evil.  
His counselor at Groveland Wilderness Camp is a robot. Pete bets that all the counselors are. Human beings with feelings couldn’t do this to other humans.

4) Robots are sneaky fuckers.  
Joe’s the one that points out Miller doesn’t ever eat. Miller’s always claimed to have a sensitive stomach, and there’s been more than once that one of them have had a nasty sandwich and spent the night in shotgun for the express purpose of having a window to puke out of, and Miller just gloats in the background. Miller’s a bitch about food, that’s just the truth, just like Dan farts in his sleep, and Jay can pound the most beers of any of them.

But Joe pulls Pete to the side and asks him ‘have you ever seen him eat’, and when Pete tells him not to be retarded, Miller’s not anorexic, Joe says ‘no, seriously, list five times you’ve seen him eating. Three even.’

And the hell of it is, when he actually stops to rifle through years of Arma Angelus memories, he’s not nothing. Not a birthday cake, or a handful of nuts at a bar they played at, not a hamburger. Shit, forget about straight edge, he can’t think of a time he saw Miller drink _anything_.

So he confronts him. Casually asks if he’s a robot, and when he doesn’t deny it strongly enough, pushes harder. And that’s the end of Arma.

5) Robots don’t appreciate good music.  
Pete loves playing small clubs. He can tell Fall Out Boy is going to have much bigger things in the future, but for now they’ve got a van held together with tape, that is wonderfully capable of running on more fumes than liquid. It’s brilliant, it gives him all the time in the world to spend with Joe and Patrick and Andy. It’s a nonstop party, they are all sleep deprived and stinking as they wear shirts for the fifth night without washing, but then Pete was probably going to be that sort of person even if he’d never been in a band.

He likes being on the stage -shit, sometimes it’s just a different section of floor, taped off- and being able to see his audience. He wishes he could join them, sometimes, the moshing and screaming. The only thing he misses about Arma is the opportunity to let off a scream whenever the fuck he wanted. He can’t do that to Patrick though, overpower him and his great voice with the things running through himself. So he stays quiet and lets the audience enjoy it for him.

Unfortunately tiny venues also gives him the chance to see the pricks and douchebags. The entire crowd is moshing, except for one asshole leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, like he’s suffering a fucking hardship being here. Pete’s never understood the attitude that makes someone buy a ticket to something they’re not going to like, and seeing the guy makes him want to jump off the stage and strangle him with the strap on his bass.

Then the light flashes oddly, and he sees the guy has a metal skull. It’s the new look of activist robots, a way of forcing themselves into the public arena. Sort of the way gay guys used to really camp it up, robots peel off their scalp and walk around showing everyone. Fucking figures it’s a robot prick.

6)Robots are actually friends of his.  
“Look, it’ll be great. We’re gonna tell the scene kids they need to lighten the fuck up, and say it’s the end of the world!”

Pete thinks that’s all well and good. Hell, if they had a different concept, say that a giant frog told them it was gonna be the end of the world, everything would be fine. But he’s caught on the first part of the idea and can’t really get out of that groove. Every time he revs his mental engine he only sinks deeper into the sludge.

“You’re gonna be an all robot scene band telling scene kids to be happy?”

“And to party like it’s the end of the world. That part’s the most important part.”

“Gabe, I’m not even going to ask since when have you been a robot, because that’s not something that just suddenly happens. But do you really think it’s a good idea for a bunch of robots to go live telling a bunch of teenagers it’s the end of the world?” Fuck, everyone would say Decaydance was a fucking cult or something.

“Pete, we’ll only have a song or two about it. Most of our songs will be about doing crazy shit, drinking and drugs for the human scene kids, riding surges for the robot scenesters. We’re not the new Charlie Manson, alright?”

Fuck his fucking life. Jesus Christ.

7) Robots and robot lovers are disturbingly violent.  
Pete’s been watching CNN for the last two hours. Most of it is the same information repeating over and over again, but he can’t look away. He doesn’t know what he thinks of it, and every single person on tour is going to have an opinion, so he can’t close his laptop and leave his bunk until he knows what he’s going to say. He doesn’t want to be wishy-washy, he hates that shit. You’re either a Democrat or a Republican, a socialist or a capitalist. There is no room for flipfloppers in his book. He just needs to pick a side and take it.

On one hand, the robots probably have a point. They have so few rights in the United states, whereas if they travel a few hours north to Canada, or fly over to Europe everyone’s already over their controversy. Nobody cares there, which makes a ton of people hate the metal-loving countries. Pete can’t see Gabe or Ryland or the rest ever wanting to get married, but they should be allowed to if they actually find someone to fall in love with.

On the other, this is taking it a bit far. Protests are fine, Pete’s been in a few PETA campaigns himself. But getting into brawls with the anti-protest protesters is a bad idea. Tipping over cars and setting shit on fire is much much worse. Pete’s had a few conversations with Gabe about this sort of thing, he knows that most robots fear death as much as humans do. But everyone’s going to look at this and assume that all robots want all humans dead, and they don’t care if they have to go down with them.

It’s a bad fucking scene, and Pete wishes he knew what he thought about it. But he doesn’t, so he keeps the curtain closed.

8) Robots were past lovers.  
 _jst fck hm alrady. no from good xperience robts lik sex_

Pete stares at the message. It can’t possibly mean what he thinks it means. There’s not a fucking chance. Is there?

He can’t have this conversation through misspelled texts. It would be best as a face to face thing, but they’re in different states. Possibly even different countries, Pete’s got the tour dates of double dozen bands in his head, he’s not sure when MCR is going out. With no better option, he calls.

“Mikey, tell me you didn’t mean-”

“Pete, if you can’t even finish your sentence then you’re never going to be able to do what you want. And that means I have Patrick and Joe and Andy whining at me to try and fix you forever. So just say it. Ask if I’m scrap metal.”

Pete winces at the word. He’s never said nigger, never said fag, and he’ll never say scrap metal. “Are you a robot?”

“Yep.”

“Does your band know?”

“Gimme a sec.” Pete can hear rustling, then a few moments of silence, then a slammed door. “In the lounge now. Everyone knows except Gee. Brian, Lyn-z and the rest of MSI, hell even Matt tried to start some shit when he left, but nobody believed him.”

“You’re telling me your brother doesn’t know you’re a robot?” It’s fucking impossible, Gerard Way knows when Mikey takes a crap, there’s no way he wouldn’t know.

“When Gerard was twelve, I died. Gerard tried to kill himself, a bunch of times. So they made a new Mikey and Gerard bought it. I guess I was close enough to the old me that he just refuses to remember the month I was gone. He’s never said a thing. The guys know, they help me cover the few times I need to plug in and regain energy. It was bad when I started short circuiting at the Paramour, but that’s the only time.”

“I’ve seen you eat!” It’s the one clue humans have for spotting robots, how he figured out Miller, how he should have guessed when Gabe was always fucked up but never drank or took anything because he just needed the surges.

“I have a storage tray I can dump out later. It was experimental, illegal in most states now, but they can’t recall it, only forbid new models to have it. Don and Donna spent almost everything they had on me. They couldn’t have slips like that let Gerard figure it out.”

“You didn’t tell me.” Pete is belatedly crushed for the omission. They’d talked about everything that summer, even things that hurt. How could he have left out something so vital?

“Fall Out Boy wasn’t exactly known for the robot love, Pete. Whatever, this isn’t the point. I didn’t text-out myself for a sob story. Just hook up with Gabe already. He wants it, God knows your band knows you want it. Humans like sex, robots like sex, go have sex.”

Pete blanks out for a second. After finding out about Gabe and having to alter his entire view on robots, the one vow he kept was that he’d never fuck a robot. They’re a different species, and that’s not cool. But shit, the entire Warped summer. And if Mikey was, _is_ a robot, brilliant beautiful smart ass great in bed Mikey, how many one night stands have been that he never had the time or inclination to notice?

9)Robots are good in bed.  
Pete thinks it’s pretty awesome that their come doesn’t actually have sperm in it. Neither Mikey nor Gabe can accidentally knock up a girl, and both have proof in court if some dumb fan lies about it. It’s also pretty awesome that they both have a model that produces fluid during orgasm. He’s still not exactly sure how robots can _have_ an orgasm, but he doesn’t want to know. He’s deliberately choosing to remain ignorant. He doesn’t know much about the anatomy of humans, he doesn’t want to look at Gabe and see a carburetor instead of a person. They just occasionally go to a specialist to top up on stuff like saliva or tears or come, and that’s enough for Pete.

He’s not sure if the lack of gag reflex is a robot thing. It could be, because they don’t eat, so they’ve never learned to vomit. But Pete is full blooded human, and he’s just as good at taking either of them down into his mouth. Maybe it’s just a musician thing, they have to belt out lyrics so they have wide throats.

Even knowing that they’re both robots, he can’t tell the difference between sex between a single species and sex between two. Pete likes to delude himself into thinking he notices details, but is self aware enough to know he truly doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter anyway, because there’s more to sex than just getting a good fuck. Or at least there can be, with the right people. Mikey and Gabe are his right people.

10) Robots are actually pretty good dudes.  
Some people are treating him differently, of course. Probably just as much for the triad relationship as for the dating an out robot.

Andy demands to know why they’re not out protesting. It’s his little eco-terrorist soul, he can’t understand not screaming for the rights they deserve. Pete shrugs and Mikey shrugs and Gabe shrugs then sings Grab Your Surge Protectors that night on stage.

Gerard doesn’t tell Mikey he should be out on the streets. Instead he brings it up on stage, telling the crowd it doesn’t matter if the person you love has blood or not, as long as they own your heart. Mikey tells them later how he almost puked, and for two songs Frank didn’t tackle him or even try to touch him.

Alex is a bitch for all of two minutes. He and Ryland have been together forever, and Alex is of the opinion that Pete used to have, like should be with like. Then Gabe makes the fine debating point of ‘fuck you’, and the matter is dropped.

Pete handles all of it like he handles the constant paparazzi; acknowledgment coupled with indifference. He knows his friends will think what they want to think, just the same as his fans. But it only has to matter if he decides it does. And if it does, eventually it’ll be a stomach churning heart tearing choice between Mikey and Gabe and the press and disapproving distant relatives. So it doesn’t. He loves his sweet little dudes, and fuck the rest.


End file.
